While consumers seek cosmetics that provide both coverage and a natural-look, there remains a continuing need in the cosmetic industry for such products. With color cosmetics, there is traditionally a trade-off between naturalness and coverage, where the better a cosmetic hides imperfections, the less natural it generally looks upon application. For example, non-pigmented products containing elastomers and microspheres often provide a natural look, but offer very little coverage. On the other hand, conventional colored foundations provide high-coverage, but less naturalness. While the desired coverage and color can come from the use of high-refractive index materials, such as titanium dioxide or other iron oxide pigments, such components are largely opaque and thus often appear monochromic, artificial, or paste-like, at least in part because they cover up natural color variations of human skin.
Natural skin has a transparent quality with color that varies depending upon the angle from which it is viewed, a phenomenon known as “color travel.” The outer layer of human skin is a semi-transparent layer known as the stratum corneum. Underlying the stratum corneum is a layer of skin that has the blood vessels and pigments of the body. The reddish hue of the blood vessels, hemoglobin, and the brown/black hue of melanin combine to produce, through the transparency of the stratum corneum, the skin's color. Moreover, the angle of viewing of the skin alters its appearance to the viewer. For example, the viewer sees more of the red of hemoglobin in the skin's dermis when the skin is viewed at virtually a perpendicular angle. However, the viewer sees more brown, due to the melanin content of the outer layers of epidermis, when the skin is viewed at an acute angle. Color cosmetic manufacturers recognize that matching this color variation, while concealing textual and color imperfections, is important in providing a desirable cosmetic product, especially in foundation make-up products.
One earlier attempt to address these problems used large particle color travel pigments to supposedly retain the color travel effect upon application of powdered pigments to the skin. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2006/0013838. The pigments were coated with at least two layers of high and low refractive index metal oxides. Another approach involved the use of pigment particles having an inorganic core at least partially coated with an organic coloring substance. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2008/0044366. These methods involved complicated manufacturing procedures, e.g., with respect to the required layering or coating of specific materials in a specific manner. Still another approach used macroscopic particles coated with inorganic particles, while using little or no pigment (see U.S. Pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2009/0155586 to Avon Products, Inc.). This approach may result in low coverage cosmetics.
Accordingly, there remains a need in the cosmetic arts for colored cosmetic compositions affording high-coverage, e.g., that obscures both textural and color imperfections, while still maintaining the natural look of clean, bare skin. It is therefore an object of the invention to provide compositions and methods addressing these and other needs.
The foregoing discussion is presented solely to provide a better understanding of the nature of the problems confronting the art and should not be construed in any way as an admission as to prior art nor should the citation of any reference herein be construed as an admission that such reference constitutes “prior art” to the instant application.